


Pāśabaddha

by avani



Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-23 03:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15596865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani
Summary: Shivu supposes he ought have known that it would be the sight of a wooden mask that would make the beginning of the end, but that does nothing to temper his disgruntlement.





	Pāśabaddha

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weaslayyy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaslayyy/gifts).



The bravest and most wonderful person in the world, bar none, is Shivu’s mother, and never more so than when she faces down the Chief of the Kuntalan rebels for his sake.

This is because the rebels are, in and of themselves, terrifying, for all Shivu has spent most of his life so far in the midst. They smile little, speak less, and always they wear dreadful wooden masks. Death masks, his mother calls them, worn by Kuntalan bodies before their burning—or, when donned by the living, those who claim there is no difference between them and the dead. Shivu interprets that to mean they are no more than inanimate corpses, and peers them when they pass with the utmost terror.

This is in part why he’s so grateful to his mother. Soon enough he gathers the argument is all about making him, Shivu, one of those mask-clad soldiers, and he can imagine nothing worse. The dead lack the leisure  of exploring the mountains above, or the luxury of paddling in the river below. They aren’t allowed even a single _jamun_ fruit, even at dinner!

“Not,” says Mother, “for my son.”

“Devasena!” The Chief glares at Mother, as fierce and fiery-eyed as ever. There was a time, Shivu has heard, that the Chief was nothing so unhappy, before the kingdom had been lost and the Chief fled into exile; but better, really, never to have a kingdom if the lack of it could change one so. Shivu has just finished thinking this when the Chief scowls, as though perfectly aware of his private insubordination, and so it’s not surprising that he yelps and ducks behind Mother’s skirts.

Mother, though, is undaunted by even so fearsome a sight. “Say what you will,” she says, “it changes nothing. My son and I will stay here no longer, no matter how grateful we have been for your generosity.”

“Generosity?” repeats the Chief. “Gratitude? This has nothing to do with either, Devasena, and everything to do with Mahendra’s future. With Mahishmati’s future.”

“Mahishmati’s future is in destiny’s hands, and Kuntala’s, too,” says Mother, “but Shivu’s is in mine.” She pauses, raises her hands like a queen. “My decision is made; I will hear no more deliberation.”

Indeed there is not. Not a week later the rebels conduct them to a quiet nondescript fishing village, where arrangements have been made for them to live in a quiet nondescript hut, just large enough for him and Mother. The Chief does not bid them farewell; out of anger, Mother says, but Shivu is too relieved to care. The Chief’s anger also means that the rebels who accompany him melt back into the forest almost immediately afterwards, so that the only masks Shivu ever sees are in his dreams. There they still whirl around him, trying to affix  forcibly themselves to his face: ridiculous, really, to be frightened of such things, he reminds himself when awake.

Otherwise his life knows very few sorrows. To be sure, he has to be careful not to use his secret name--Mahendra--aloud, but as Mother has always been in the habit of calling him Shivu, it makes very little difference. Instead he grows up, learning to shoot and swim and scout from Mother, safe in the knowledge that he loves her, and is loved by her, better than anyone else in the world.

As the years pass, his memories of his time spent in the rebel camp fade, until they almost seem to have happened to another boy, a Mahendra, instead him. The nightmares linger, though: and on unexpected nights, he still finds himself waking with a hoarse throat and burning eyes.

The day Shivu comes back from the hunt to find a shadow perched in the _jamun_ tree behind their hut follows just such a night; and so his temper is already frayed from lack of sleep, even before he can make out the brown mask and sturdy brown clothes the stranger wears. He supposes he ought have known the rebels would re-enter his life someday, that it would be the sight of a wooden mask that would make the beginning of the end, but that does nothing to temper his disgruntlement.

The warrior is well-trained, as all the rebels are, hardly moving even as long minutes pass; but Shivu has been taught by his mother and his tendency towards impishness, and he scrambles up the tree to settle on the next branch up so as to consider his next move. Lightly armed, he assesses, only a knife tucked into the rope that serves as a belt--but foolish to assume there wouldn’t be at least three more hidden. Even were it not so, it wouldn’t take a full-grown Kuntalan rebel longer than the blink of an eye to hurt or kill him...or Mother!

Impulse wins out, and Shivu throws himself downwards. Mother would hardly approve; but perhaps he might explain his actions away as trying to take the advantage of surprise. That can come later--for now, he pins down the stranger by the shoulders and barks, in the most imposing voice he can manage: “What are you doing here?”

It occurs to him he might have asked _Who are you?_ first, but on second thought, it hardly matters. This is a Kuntalan rebel, as lifeless as the others, as terrifying a threat as fire or drought or drowning, and he needs know nothing more.

The warrior gasps for breath, and belatedly Shivu shifts his weight so his elbows no longer compress hi--oh, _her_ lungs. The discovery of her gender means little to him; he recalls women drilled alongside men, and no less deadly for it.  “I am here on a mission,” she says when she can speak, “to bring back aid for my people. And if I return alone, I will have failed.”

He likes the sound of _aid_ better than that of _assassination_ , but he is no less wary. “Aid from whom?”

The rebel clears her throat. “From the lady Devasena,” she recites formally. “And if I am refused--I--I am to do whatever it takes to convince her otherwise.”

That, Shivu likes rather less. He knows of nothing the rebels would need Mother for, except to make her one of them, and he can imagine no fate worse. Mother balked at their restrictions just as much as Shivu had as a child, if not more. But even should she refuse, he can imagine what might be included in the definition of “whatever it takes” and he will have none of it directed at Mother. Not while he lives, at least: that is all he needs to come up with a plan, however haphazard. It might be dangerous, and certainly deceitful, but Mother had done no less to defend him when he was small. He can do no less for her.

He scrambles off the rebel, even offering his hand to help her sit up. He will need her trusting to accomplish what he must, or at least less likely to stab him once she has access to her knives. She doesn’t take it--did he really expect her to?--but at the same time she doesn’t attack him outright, which he thinks ought to count for something. Even so, he speaks quickly, trying to get his words out before her forbearance fades.

“The Lady Devasena is dead,” he says bluntly, and prays to the gods that they will not make it so to punish him his lie.” The mask conceals the rebel’s reaction, but her head is lowered: in disappointment? In sympathy? “I am her s-student," he substitutes at the last minute, "and anything you might need her for, I can provide. I will come with you.”

He has the sinking feeling of having damned himself: a last sharp sting of terror followed by numb acceptance, but of course his audience has not the slightest appreciation of what this has cost him. Instead, the eyes he can see through her mask blink twice in surprise, and she replies only: “You?” She looks him up and down, and Shivu is surprised to find himself sitting up straighter, that numbness suddenly replaced by indignation. He can’t see why she appears so uncertain: he’s a man grown, after all!

“How old are you, anyway?”

“Sixteen,” Shivu lies, or at least it won’t entirely be a lie come the end of summer. He’s suddenly very glad he didn’t get rid of his new and carefully cultivated mustache, no matter how much Mother tried to convince him it looked foolish.

“You’re her student,” the rebel says next, still sounding every bit as unconvinced as before, and at that Shivu loses his temper.

“Do you want me to come with you or not?” he demands, voice all the sharper because he hopes she’ll decide against it. Truly that will be the best of all alternatives, to bear the pride of having been willing to sacrifice himself for Mother without the pain of actually having to do it. He will nobly keep it to himself, he decides, except maybe if Mother is angry with him, in which case he might let drop a few delicate hints so she understands the unfairness of being unkind to her loving, loyal son--

However: “All right, then,” says the rebel, indifferent as Death itself, and Shivu resigns himself to his fate.

*

The day has hardly dawned, and already the palace courtyard is in chaos, for the King must visit his prisoner before proceeding to his court, after all. On the face of it, this is not a difficult task; the prisoner is chained and caged before the Lord, after all, and has no other demands on his time. But the circumstances complicate matters, abominably so, as the King can derive little pleasure from simply watching the prisoner slumped over in silence. To devise other entertainment is the personal responsibility of the Master of Punishments, and the reason why this post has been held by thirty souls in half as many years: after all, Bhallaladeva does not tolerate disappointment well.

This season’s selection is an officer from the eastern provinces by the name of Bhuteshwaran, having recently been promoted by his supervisor’s disgrace. Today is his first chance to prove himself worthy of the King’s notice; his only, if he is not careful. All too well he remembers his predecessor’s fate, and neither he, nor his family, can afford to invite such misfortune.

The bugle warning of the King’s arrival resounds, and Bhuteshwaran takes the opportunity to wipe his hands on his clothes surreptitiously before folding them in elaborate homage. He might stand on his head for all the notice His Majesty takes of him; instead Bhallaladeva only turns his head here and there, a great cat that’s scented its prey, and growls: “Where is he?”

No need for pleasantries, then; Bhuteshwaran gestures frantically behind his back until the prisoner is dragged forward.

He clears his throat. “It seems to me,” he begins, “that our prisoner has been fed and sheltered for years without bothering to earn his keep. I propose--” The King does not bother to hide his yawn; Bhuteshwaran speaks more quickly “--he do so at once. The courtyard is filthy with the leavings of the trees; surely he can be set to cleaning them. And for every twig remaining--a lash.”

Quite cleverly done, if Bhuteshwaran says so himself; of course the prisoner will no more bestir himself to obey than he has to do anything else, even feed and rescue himself, and with the certain lashing at the end of the day will come the shame of failure.

But neither King nor prisoner seem to appreciate the brilliance of this; the former only rolls his eyes in barely concealed exasperation, while the prisoner studies the ground as stubbornly as ever. Bhuteshwaran is just beginning to wish he had set more of his affairs in order, when--

“Father, can we not go?” whines the young Crown Prince. “This is _boring_.”

It seems to Bhuteshwaran nothing more than one more example of a spoiled child’s petulance, but the prisoner’s gaze darts up at Prince Bhadra’s first word, dark with sudden pain, and Bhallaladeva smiles.

“Of course,” he assures his child, though his eyes never leave the prisoner’s, “ _my son_.”

With that, he turns to depart, satisfaction apparent in every line of his body; and if the sudden relief were not heady enough, the King even stops to clap Bhuteshwaran on the shoulder as he passes.

“Well done,” is all he says--but need he say more? Bhuteshwaran’s sight clouds with visions of wealth and promotion, of power and reputation beyond all compare--and for what? No need to prove his valor, or to risk his life in battle, but merely to devise punishments for a poor bastard who, for all his famed strength, can now no longer so much as flick away the flies that buzz and bite about his head.

Only the King’s guard, old Kattappa, lingers after the department of the royal retinue. “It’s done,” he tells Bhuteshwaran, the words low and desperate. “The King is pleased. There’s no need to continue further.”

And once the thought of Kattappa-- _the_ Kattappa--making such a request might have frightened him, but Bhuteshwaran has been well-warned. The old fool has pled so to every last man and woman to hold the post of Master of Punishments, and not one has heeded him. Not only because they fear Bhallaladeva’s rages more than they respect the slave-general of Mahishmati, but also because Mahishmati has seen what Kattappa and his princely protege offered her and rejected it outright. Why, then, ought he to do otherwise?

Let Kattappa mourn the man he’d betrayed. Bhuteshwaran sees no need to indulge him.

*

The older she grows, the more Devasena marvels at the perversity of life. As a girl growing up in the palaces of Kuntala, she’d loudly announced her preference for privacy; now, left alone for the first time in fifteen years, she learns to hate the sound of silence.

Silence, at least, could hardly reside in the same household as Shivu, but a day has already passed since her son disappeared off to destinations unknown. She might have pried. She supposes any respectable mother should have, but she trusts him to live up to her expectations. Besides, when she’d asked how long he meant to stay away, he’d only fidgeted and mumbled, “She won’t say--That is, I don’t--” and Devasena had neither needed nor wanted to hear anything more.

Fifteen seems an early start to romance. Then again, Devasena hardly remembers what it is to be young anymore; perhaps it’s just the right time. She only hopes he’ll have some sense. A mother, a widow, and an exile she might be, all before the age of forty, but she refuses outright to become a grandmother.

Anger grips her, as it does at unexpected instants. She shouldn’t have to make such jokes to empty air: instead there should be another there, to hear her ribald insinations with pretend prudery until she lost her temper and had to be cajoled back into peace with kisses. There should be someone else there to soothe her worry about Shivu’s safety, to laugh and remind her his father in his time had survived worse than a few days unsupervised, to point out that at fifteen he was certainly capable of remembering to find and eat his dinner.

She wants her husband, so badly she can barely breathe from the pain of it.

Naturally it is at this very moment that she hears the soft pad of footsteps at her door. It is not the careless tread of her neighbors, but the practiced gait of one trained to silence. Devasena sweep her gaze across her kitchen, taking account of what she can use: the coals on which her dinner (simple rice, now that she needn’t oblige Shivu’s sweet tooth) rest are still warm, her spices are within hand’s reach, and, the kitchen knives not much further away. She relaxes until she hears:

“My understanding is that I ought to arrive laden with offerings, this first time I cross your threshold. I trust you’ll forgive me.”

By no more than the slightest hitch of her breath does Devasena betray herself. She replies, very calmly, and not entirely honestly,  “I believed you dead.”

“Believed? Or hoped?” says her mother-in-law, as damnably knowing as ever. “Either way, it matters little. I don’t suppose you have any idea where your son might be found?”

Devasena grits her teeth. She will allow herself to feel negligent in her responsibilities towards Shivu, least of all before this woman, who repaid the son who’d loved her more than life itself with treachery.

“He’s gone adventuring with a friend,” she says unconcernedly, as though she had not been thinking of him only a few minutes earlier. “I imagine he’ll return in a few days.”

“A friend,” Sivagami repeats. “Has this friend a name?”

Oh, how Devasena hates her, hates the gods that must look upon this scene and laugh! “None that he cared to share with me,” she admits.

“Ah,” says her mother-in-law, as though this only confirms a preexisting suspicion. “I might have known young Avantika would not do anything by halves. Still, I’d hoped she would have enough sense to wait for my arrival. There’s nothing to be done now--except you, Devasena, will come with me, for Mahendra’s sake.”

At that Devasena whirls around, years of rage and resentment forgotten in an instant. The former Queen Mother seems shorter these days, shoulders stooped by age and agony. There is more than a sole streak of gray in the hair that is still tightly bound in a bun, and dark circles frame her eyes. Nevertheless, Devasena feels no pity, nor concern, for all she cares about is:

“Is Shivu in danger? Does he need me?”

Her mother-in-law smiles, and Devasena knows she’s played into this woman’s hand as always. Pawns, that is all any of them are or ever will be to Sivagami of Mahishmati. She curses the fate that leaves her still dependant on her, even after all these years.

“Not at the moment,” says Sivagami, “but he will, soon enough. The time has come for him to do as he was destined, to fulfill--”

“No,” Devasena interrupts. “No. We’ve spoken of this before. Shivu is too young, too untried--I won’t lose him as I lost his father--”

In response she expects the usual: arguments, arrogance, oaths of ostracism, but not what follows. Not a sigh from the indomitable Queen Mother, not her hands reaching out for comfort.

“He must,” says Sivagami wearily. “Devasena, Baahu lives.”

*

“Can’t we stop?” Shivu begs, and pretends not to hear his companion’s frustrated groan in reply. He knows, very well, that it can’t have been so very long since their last rest, although at present it’s difficult to gauge time accurately, and also that he must sound like nothing so much as a child, but he can’t help it. Among the many attributes Shivu shares with his mother is an aversion to close cramped spaces, and this tunnel certainly qualifies.

_Close your eyes and count to ten_ , Mother always advises in situations, and Shivu tries, truly he does, except when he’s finished counting, he’s still trapped in this miserable passage wishing he was anywhere else in the world. The one other trick he possesses to maintain his composure is to imagine what frightens him more, but as the answer to that--disappearing behind those dreadful, death-ridden masks as he saw so many others--seems all too likely to occur as soon as he leaves the tunnel, this does nothing to comfort him.

His eyes sting; his chest burns. _This isn’t working_ , Shivu thinks furiously, and--to distract himself from weeping outright, asks entirely at random: “What’s your name?”

“What?” says the rebel.

Smugness, Shivu is pleased to find, makes a fine antidote to apprehension. “Your name,” he says once more, aware he is being annoying and not at all ashamed. “Surely you must have one. Unless I’m to call ‘You there!’ every time I want your attention?”

A pause, and he suspects the rebel is considering her options furiously. Finally, she decides: “Avantika.”

The truth? An alias? He can’t say that he cares either way; what matters is that Shivu has gained a victory at last, no matter how insignificant.

He is granted only a little time to rest on his laurels before she retorts, “And yours?”

It’s Shivu’s turn now to say, “What?” every bit as stupidly, and Avantika’s to wear a self-satisfied sneer.

“Your name,” she jeers. “Surely you have one?”

For one terrible moment, Shivu doesn't know what the safest answer might be. Did they even remember that Mother had had a son, so long ago? He hopes to have been overlooked, but if not, Mahendra might still be recognized. But Mother had called him Shivu, too, and what if that was the name they remembered, and not Mahendra? The question of falsehood didn't enter into it; didn't Mother always say both names belonged to him, just the same? 

He takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. He didn't have to answer. He could say--what? That he was every bit as foolish as she supposed him and had forgotten his own name? An eternity in this tunnel would be preferable. 

“Yes,” he says, consigning his fate to the hands of the gods, “my name is Shivu.”

“Oh.” After all the thought and trouble he'd put into it, she seems dreadfully unimpressed. More likely than not, less than a day later, she'd be asking him all him over again. He might have said  _Mahendra_ , for all the difference it would make! Perhaps then she might betray a glimmer of interest in him. 

Embarrassment spurs him back onto his feet, and Avantika falls into line behind him. Now that he’s discovered that she does speak, if infrequently, and more importantly that conversation can overcome his nerves, Shivu interrupts the silence between them all too soon.

“Is this the path you took to come to us?” he asks, and winces at his foolishness.

She doesn’t seem to notice the _us_ , particularly when he’d claimed Mother was no longer with him, much to his relief. “No,” she says, and then apparently takes pity on him--or, more likely, realizes he’ll only pester her with another inanity if she doesn’t answer. “I came by the river-route. Three days’ additional travel but--”

She breaks off, but Shivu has heard enough of a smile in her voice to guess: “It pleases you. Enough to make it worth the trouble.”

“It’s peaceful!” Avantika seems to think further justification is due. “The tides of the river-mother flow in and out, just the same, no matter what happens around her. Nothing interferes with her. Nothing _dares_.”

Shivu is just contrary enough to point out: “A dam could.”

“Dams break.”

A challenge, then? Certainly he won’t be the first to concede. “A drought would dry it up.”

“Until Lord Indra decides to bring balance and release the rains.”

“--Or, or a mountain might--”

He doesn’t need light to know she is glaring at him through her mask. “The mountain,” she says icily, “is carved away, little by little. It needs only a willingness to wait.”

Shivu cannot help but snicker at that. “If it’s patience you mean to teach me,” he warns, “I was always a poor student at that field of study.”

She is silent so long he thinks he must have offended her, but instead it seems the soft exhalations he hears from her are what serve her as laughter. “So too was I,” she admits when she is able, and for the briefest of instants, the speechlessness between them is almost companionable.

So it is not so very surprising that Shivu promptly ruins it. He doesn’t intend to--in fact he doesn’t intend much at all, except to wonder that she does seem so unpracticed to something as natural as laughter, so desperate for what little peace the river can bring, and he blurts out: “Is it so very bad, being one among the rebels?”

A blunder if ever there was one. He can feel Avantika stiffening beside him almost before the last word leaves his mouth, and he is not entirely surprised when she snaps: “It is an honor to serve Kuntala. To avenge my motherland’s insult--to bathe her wounds in the blood of her enemies--there can be no nobler cause on this earth.”

He has heard all this before, and balked from it then. Still, if she might explain: “Is it worth dying for?” Or worse than dying, really, to become unknown and anonymous in service to the cause….

“I don’t know,” says Avantika; but before Shivu can be pleasantly surprised, she continues in that same clipped tone: “But no more do I know anything worth living for.”

*

By the darkness of the new moon, Kattappa steals away to visit the prisoner. “Baahu,” he whispers through the bars, as he always does; and as ever, there is no response. “Baahu!” he hisses again, more insistently, and the prisoner shuffles closer.

No particular interest prompts him, but a vague notion that the old man, so satisfied, might then leave him be. And not just any old man, he finds, but: _Uncle_ , as he’d known him once.

Even so faint a spark of recognition is enough; Uncle grunts and settles down on his haunches beside the cage.

“Turn around and show me your back,” he instructs, as though commanding a child, and again the prisoner judges it easier to obey.

Uncle lets out a sharp breath when the rags covering the prisoner’s back are lowered; but soon enough he regains his composure enough to start spreading something cool and soothing over the worst of the wounds.

“That ointment you always begged of the court physician,” he murmurs by way of explanation and chuckles to himself. “And when he refused, took it upon yourself to ‘borrow’ some from his stock. What a scoundrel you were!”

Had he been? These days the prisoner tries never to remember his boyhood, or any part of his life before his imprisonment. Almost it is easier to imagine he had never existed outside of chains.

“And when I caught you at it, and demanded to know what you were about--” Uncle’s voice cracks, and the prisoner’s heart, had he one any longer, might sink. “‘To patch up my injuries before anyone knows, Uncle,’ you told me. ‘So that no one need worry.’”

His hands pause. The prisoner does not protest.

“Baahu,” Uncle begins, and already the prisoner knows what he intends to say. “The guards have been--disposed of for the night, and I, doddering fool that I am, shall so easily forget to lock up your chains and gate. The new moon in her mercy shall not betray you, Baahu, I beg you: come with me.”

No response, but Uncle is never so easily dissuaded.

“Your duty to your country is not yet discharged,” he chides. “Mahishmati needs you to take your freedom--its people require your survival to ensure theirs. Will you desert them in their darkest hour? Will you allow their hopes to go unheard?”

Once nothing had seemed so important in the world than to do just what Uncle described--but since then, too much had changed, too much had been lost. Where idealism had burned in the prisoner’s mind, now there was only the memory of a charred cottage, empty of so much as ashes. He might have found those eventually, kept them as grisly relics of those who he’d loved best, but he had not had the time before his brothers’ soldiers had found him, silent and staring, and taken him away to face the King’s judgment. After that had come the cage, but by then nothing had really mattered: a mercy, in its way.  

“Baahu,” says Uncle, “ _please_.”

He is sorry for the old man’s sorrow, in the dry detached way he seems to be sorry for anyone’s grief, a shadow of his own; but it asks too much of him than he is willing to give. He slouches down against the bars, attempting to disappear into his rags. Let Uncle forget him; let them all forget him: it would be easier that way.

“Very well,” Uncle says; he must have stood once more from the way his voice carries. “I understand. Is this your punishment, you gods who witnessed my ancestors’ oath so long ago? Am I so to suffer the price for breaking my word to my King and the Queen Mother by disobedience? Then let it fall upon me, a hundred, a thousand times over, I accept it happily, but let my Baahu--”

_Always so overdramatic_ , the prisoner thinks with a wisp of what might have been fondness, and then all is blessed silence once more. In the morning, when he bothers to look, Uncle is gone: and by then, he cannot be certain if any of it had happened in truth or if this is simply one more memory he would do better to forget.

*

One of the many things Devasena has been able to forget over the years is exactly how easily and effectively her mother-in-law manages to frustrate her. From the start Sivagami had incited her to explosive displays, even as she had resolved to hold her tongue and promised her husband to control her temper. Here and now, in close quarters, the provocation is almost too much to bear.

“...I expect,” Sivagami is saying, “that he knows nothing of the laws of Mahishmati.”

Her head is pounding, and the walls of this tunnel are close together, far too close together. “Shivu,” Devasena says, forcing herself to keep her voice level, “was born with a good heart. He understands the greater law, which is worth far more.”

“ _Mahendra_ ,” Sivagami corrects, “is the Crown-Prince-to-be. The greater law may dictate principle, but it is knowledge of the law books themselves that will serve a practical use. He’ll have much to learn.”

Try as she might, Devasena cannot remember agreeing to such a thing; certainly not sending her son to fend off Sivagami’s idea of a princely education. When she points this out, however, Sivagami only scoffs and says: “Do you expect him to come to the throne unprepared and unskilled? Why, one might just as well pluck a soul from the forests, hand them the crown, and expect them to rule wisely and well.”

Devasena has long thought a forest-dweller would do far better as monarch than anyone fettered to Mahishmati’s history of institutionalized injustice, but this is not the moment to make that clear. Instead she focuses on convincing herself that the passage through which they walk is wider than it seems, that the walls don’t abut her shoulders uncomfortably.

_Trapped, trapped, trapped_ , her blood sings, and she shudders.

“I wonder,” the Queen Mother continues, oblivious to Devasena’s distress--though even did she notice, why should she care? “if I didn’t err, all those years ago, entrusting you with Mahendra’s upbringing--”

That is all. Devasena strides more quickly than before, pulse pounding in a way it hasn’t since she stood defiantly in Mahishmati’s courtroom and faced down this woman before a thousand curious eyes. Anger, she is pleased to find, makes a fine antidote to anxiety.

“You did not,” she snarls, “entrust me with anything, Queen Mother.”

Even Sivagami seems to realize she’s gone too far. “My intent was not--” she begins, but it is far too late.

“Shivu is _my_ son to raise by right of love and blood,” snaps Devasena, “not Mahishmati’s last hope, not even Kuntala’s future. He is no more and no less than what he is, which is a fifteen-year-old possessed of all the skills and sense I have managed to teach him; but he is not his father, nor will he ever be.”

Sivagami considers. “You mean to say he is-- inadequate?”

“I mean to say he is a soul of his own, who doesn’t deserve to held up to impossible standards.” Devasena hesitates, even in her rage, before she decides she must go on. “Or to pay the price for your own guilt.”

“I did what I must for Mahishmati’s survival.” The once-Queen Mother’s voice is steady, but over the years Devasena has pieced together enough of the story to predict what a blow her pride must have taken. Bad enough to have stumbled across her husband and son crowing over her credulousness, but to know that it had led to the order, already given, to have her younger son killed? Unbearable. Too late by then to countermand her command to Kattappa, and so Sivagami had gone to save, if not Baahubali, then the wife and son he had loved.

In truth Devasena feels a grudging respect. It would have been easier to stay in the palace, to  consolidate what power and partisans remained to her--but instead, surprisingly, Sivagami had chosen the path of honor. Not out of hope of forgiveness from the son she’d wronged: Devasena had seen her mother-in-law’s face as Sivagami had lit their small cottage aflame, having roused Devasena from the birthing bed and bid her bundle up the newborn Shivu in her arms. That had been the face of a woman who had lost everything--and knew it, too.

Such a face Devasena imagines Sivagami to wear now, here in the darkness.

“You did,” Devasena says gently. “But must that mean you must sacrifice yourself for it, time and again?”

Sivagami laughs like the chime of broken glass. “There is no amount of sacrifice that satisfies Mahishmati, in the end; she demands more blood than the Goddess herself, and all from its daughters-in-law--that you will learn in time.”

Devasena has known and loved and hated this woman--often all at the same time-- for long enough to know that this is the closest thing to a truce she will be offered. Or perhaps it is more than that: perhaps it is instead a long-belated welcome to her family.

_She’ll care for you as a daughter, not only a daughter-in-law_ , Devasena remembers being told what seems an eternity ago, and for once the memory does not bring bitter tears of disappointment in its wake.

“Come along.” Sivagami sniffs, never one for sentiment. “We must hurry if we are to catch up to your Shivu;” and Devasena, smiling faintly, follows.

*

Shivu cannot decide how to feel when the landscape grows more and more familiar as they near the rebel camp. There, so near, are the snow-capped peaks he’d longed to explore; here are the crack and crevices that conceal the entries into the inner caves. By rights it ought to fill him with dread, but instead he only knows a vague satisfaction with every turn taken at random that proves to be right.

Avantika gives him sidelong looks--he can tell from the turn of her head, from the slide of her dark eyes. He takes pity on her, enough to mention in passing: “We lived here, once.”  

He flees before she can wonder what that _we_ means. This is what comes of making friends and conversation, he thinks disgustedly: he can’t even keep up a simple falsehood! He has never been more ashamed of himself.

Of course that means he approaches the doorway to the camp alone. He hadn’t meant to; surely Avantika was entitled to a moment of glory before her comrades, having brought back her sacrifice to the cause as goats were offered to the Goddess in barbaric lands. But pique, and his own stupidity, foil his plans, and he looks back at a crowd of masked faces. They part before him, which is nice--Shivu doubts elbowing his way to the front will make for a favorable impression.  

To his surprise and relief he sees a familiar face--his uncle of Kuntala, as bushy-bearded as ever. Uncle can be counted upon to be reasonable; Uncle won’t demand he disappear for the sake of someone else’s fight. Shivu knows very well what happened to Kuntala, and Uncle too, and is very sorry for them both; but just as well he knows that no county can be reclaimed, as Mother always says, if it comes at the cost of its people’s souls.

Uncle always listened to Mother, so Mother claimed, and Shivu thinks he might understand.

He staggers closer, touches Uncle’s feet, but his lips have only just formed a greeting when the crowd behind him erupts in whispers once more. At first he thinks it’s something he must have done wrong--or, equally likely, that Avantika has realized his deception and has swooped forward to slay him--but instead, it is only that the crowd divides one more to admit two newcomers, both of them women. One is Mother; the other, the Chief.

Shivu can’t be at all sure which frightens him more.

They certainly do not seem surprised to see him. Mother only nods in passing to him as if expecting him to be present, while the Chief ignores him on her way to her sovereign chair.

It is so much like the most alarming of his earliest memories, or the worst of his nightmares, that Shivu is honestly relieved he doesn’t appear expected to explain himself.

The Chief speaks instead, voice echoing in the icy silence of the caves.

“For years,” she says, “we have waited. We have concealed every hint of our existence, consumed roots and rats alike, crawled through the darkness for the barest scrap of news.    But our day has come at last.”

Shivu thinks if anyone were telling him an end had come to hiding and crawling and eating _rats_ , he should cheer with joy. But the rebels clearly feel nothing of the sort--or are too well-trained to show it--and instead only stand stick-straight, studying the Chief.

“The first blow to Mahismati’s pride will be struck tonight,” she goes on. “When, despite all their armies and all their efforts, we liberate my son. And that accomplished, the city’s fall is not far behind.”

At that even the rebels are hard-pressed not to cheer, but Shivu cannot join them. He might as well have been turned to stone since he heard the words “my son”--always he has known the Chief was no one other than his father’s mother, another reason to worry his will should be crushed beneath hers. But if she should think her son--his father--were capable of being rescued, if he should be alive--

Surely he’s misunderstood. Shivu looks to his mother, who would know beyond all certainty if it were so; and, more importantly, would never conceal it from him as the Chief might. Her gaze is already fixed on his, as though anticipating him, and as he watches, her lips turn first downwards, then upwards in an uncertain smile.

He needs no further confirmation.

*

Devasena finds her son curled atop a ledge deep in the shadows of the cave. She might think him idly dozing, if it weren’t for the fact that he turns a Kuntalan death mask around in his hands lazily, studying it from every angle.

“It will fit,” Devasena murmurs as she approaches, and Shivu doesn’t so much as jump.

“That is what alarms me,” he replies, but he straightens to face her. She takes that as a good sign, until he stares at her, wide-eyed as ever, and asks: “Did you know?”

She does not need him to elaborate. She sighs. “Not until your grandmother told me. I have never lied to you, Shivu. I do not intend to start now.”

He relaxes. “He’s alive, my father?” She can’t remember Shivu ever sounding quite so subdued in all his short, stentorian life. “Amarendra Baahubali.” He speaks the syllables as though they sit uneasily on his tongue, and Devasena’s heart aches anew.

“Yes,” she says. Her throat is too tight to allow anything more.

“Will he like me?”

The fact that her son should have to ask such a thing of his sentimental, softhearted father brings back the old anger once more, but this time Devasena is able to wrestle it into submission. Better to tuck it away until it could be of use tonight, when all the violence and viciousness in her heart could be unleashed upon the tyrant responsible.

“Without question,” she says absently, and it is only later that she realizes that Shivu still appears unconvinced.

*

Watching over the prisoner is generally the least-desired of the tasks given the palace guards, generally reserved for troublemakers and toughs. Conscience rears its head in far too many a promising candidate, and the Master of Guards is tired of making excuses to the King. Even after sufficiently compliant men have been found, it is still dull work: the prisoner moves little, and the pleasure of taunts fades quickly. The posts are spread too far apart to allow for conversation, and the surroundings offer few diversions.

So it is with not a little relief that the guards tonight are greeted with the news that the King wishes to visit the prisoner, even at so late an hour, and that, to allow him his privacy, they are to stand discreetly apart. To be sure, they are meant to remain within earshot; but a man could do so just as well playing cards with his friends in the guardhouse.

The prisoner, arguably most affected by these orders, is left unawares until the King’s unsteady steps approach; and even then he faces them with mild dismay. Bhalla, who’d sworn so sternly never to follow in his father’s path, is not nearly so drunk as he appears; but no more is he in his right mind. He has not been so, the prisoner reflects sadly, for years on end; and part of the reason the prisoner allows his captivity is because he cannot be certain that his brother’s downfall was not in part his doing.

“Baahu,” drawls Bhalla, solitude loosening his tongue where even spirits could not. “All that is noble and good; Mahishmati’s future, Mother’s favorite son, confined to these squalid circumstances. Who would have believed it when we were boys?”

A prelude, to what he means to discuss; always Bhalla has had a maddening tendency towards procrastination. Will it be plaints that his lowered taxes went unappreciated or plans for the army tonight? Vitriol against the commoners’ pleas for reform or worries about the western border?

Neither, as it turns out. “And still,” Bhalla whispers, “still they have not forgotten you.”

That the prisoner knows all too well. It is not for lack of effort on his part, and certainly he has done nothing for his people to take pride in for far too many years. If he could fade into obscurity like the dust that surrounds him, he would: to have what remained of him blown away by the winds to distant lands that demanded nothing from him.

“Day in, day out,” says Bhalla disgustedly, “they whisper your name. You will be pleased to know that in their tales you’ve become ten times the hero you ever were: always fair, always fearless, always fortunate. While I, their King, who lives and toils and sweats for Mahishmati and has ever since I drew breath--I am feared and hated and scorned.”

Indeed it was unfair, the prisoner thinks, but so too is life. The prisoner discovered that the night he returned to his home, Uncle who’d betrayed him and then saved him just behind, only to find it all gone.

“What I am to do, Baahu?” It is a genuine plea, of the sort Bhalla would have died rather than make in his youth. “When will I be rid of you?”

The prisoner reaches out towards him; if the King came a hair closer, the prisoner’s soiled, cracked hands might rest on his shoulder. _Kill me at last_ , he thinks, _let me rest._

Bhalla recoils. “Never,” he says, so harshly that the words might be a response to his own thought or those of the other. “Not so long as I live.”

The King retreats, so hastily he travels by foot rather than by royal chariot; and so hurriedly he does not even think to summon the guards back to his posts, but, after all, what is the need? So unsupervised, the prisoner only droops once more, the rest of his existence stretching out before him:  unnecessary, unbearable, unending.

*

Shivu adjusts his mask yet again. He hates the feel of it against his skin as much as he always supposed he would, but Mother insists. “There is at least something to be said for anonymity,” she tells him. “Too many in Mahishmati would recognize my face--or yours.”

By which Shivu assumes he is growing into his father’s features just as Mother always promised he would. As a child, he’d wanted nothing more, and even now, his insides glow with pleasure at the realization: but if it means he must go into battle for the first time in his life wearing a mask meant only for the dead and dying --an inauspicious omen if ever he heard one--he believes he could go without.

Mother holds a mask, too, and Shivu dislikes the sight of it almost as much. Mother was never meant to hide away; her justice is delivered in plain sight. So she has always taught him, and so he has always seen her do. But she must truly want Father back, at least enough to cooperate with whatever the Chief dictates--and that includes the stipulation that Shivu and Mother must disguise themselves.

“You remember what we are to do?” Mother asks for what must be the thousandth time.

“Stay behind the others until we reach the gates,” Shivu recites. “When they break away--where are they going?”

“With your grandmother. What next?”

“Why with her? Isn’t the Chief meant to stay away?”

Mother sighs. “Your grandmother is the one prize that might lure Bhallaladeva from guarding your father so securely. He’s never forgiven her for deserting him--the bounty he offers for her body is ten thousand gold coins, when last I heard. Double that if she’s brought back alive, to allow him the pleasure of killing her himself. She puts herself in danger so that we may do what we must, and so we can hardly dishonor her by slipshod preparation. What comes next, Shivu?”

“Then we go to the temple, and I do as you tell me,” Shivu recites, only a little sulkily. Mother gives him a stern look, but clearly decides to ignore it; instead, she slips her mask more securely on her face.

Much to Shivu’s surprise, their arrival into Mahishmati goes much as planned. Just as Mother had said, the gates open to allow soldiers to file out as soon as the Chief shows her face by torchlight, and in the ensuing chaos, it’s easy for Shivu and Mother to slip by. Even finding the courtyard where their spies had mentioned seeing Father is simpler than might be expected. Shivu hasn’t the slightest idea where to go, but fortunately Mother does. She leads the way, and all he must do is follow.

He means to be quiet, truly he does, and then the dome of the Shiva Temple looms up above him, the largest thing he’s ever seen, and he can’t help but gape. Mother taps at his wrist impatiently, and he walks on, but he can’t help but ask: “Was that built when you lived here?”

“Yes,” says Mother shortly. She doesn’t much seem to enjoy thinking about the temple for some reason.

“Was it so tall then?”

“Yes,” is the quelling response; and Shivu knows they’ll be overheard, but by then they’ve entered the courtyard proper, and his eyes have landed on the cage.

“Was that there then?”

“No,” says Mother, and her voice is sad.

Shivu can’t see why, not until he looks closer and sees that, against all laws of man and nature, there is a human silhouette that sits between those bars, back stooped and head bent. He has never seen anything so terrible in his life, and even if Mother’s grief didn’t warn him who this would be, Shivu thinks he would do anything to free this captive. It is a sin, trapping anyone within one: Shivu’s whole self rebels at the thought.

He bounds forward, and Mother’s arm comes out to hold him back. “There are no guards,” she hisses. “Why are there no guards?”

Shivu considers. “Because Bhallaladeva is an imbecile?” Why deliberate more? It’s better this way; he might even have the opportunity to study his father first before Mother frees him.

He tempts fate by the thought, though, because just then he hears: “Go on, you good-for-nothing dolts! Need I send a written invitation requesting you to take up your posts?”

Shivu freezes in horror, but Mother only whispers; “You see to the locks. I’ll see to them.”

Him? She wants him to free Father? That is not at all how it was meant to be; Mother was supposed to do so, while Shivu stayed out of the way and did as he was told. But there is no time to deliberate further, the first of the guards are approaching, grousing: “One promotion to Master of Punishments, and this fool of a Bhuteshwaran thinks he can bully us--” and Mother is unsheathing her sword--

Shivu scrambles forward blindly. He’s at the cage when he realizes he doesn’t at all know how to open one, not without a key. He looks to Mother but, given she’s facing five opponents at the moment, she is not in a position to offer advice. So Shivu mutters an apology to--whoever these belong to and swings his sword blindly at the lock, hoping blunt force might work in place of brains, and--it does.

He crawls inside the cage, which is even more grimy and confined than it seems from the outside and looks at his father for the first time in his life. It is not an impressive sight: all he can tell is that his father has a dreadful posture indeed, and hasn’t cut his hair in what seems to be decades. He doesn’t so much as look at Shivu, even when Shivu has to swing his sword again at Father’s chains to break them.

Not does he do anything helpful when Shivu sits up and says, admittedly awkwardly: “Er. Please come with me. Sir?” In Shivu’s defense, he has only the faintest notion of how to address a father, but truly he thinks the invitation to escape ought to speak for itself.

In the end, he has to half-carry his father out from the cage, the only advantage being that the other man’s indolence extends to not struggling against his grip. He wonders at first if he might have to carry Father all the way back, but all too soon he sees that is hardly practical: Father’s even taller than he is, and even now well-built. It would make for far too unwieldy a burden.

Under the circumstances, the chariot he discovers, somehow still with its horses hitched and ready, seems a godsend. Shivu helps his father into the back and shouts for Mother, who looks up from her last opponent and nods. Shivu flicks the horses’ reins and sends them racing ahead, while Mother slashes a final time at the guard she faces before springing gracefully behind him.

It’s all very exciting for the first moment or two, until Shivu remembers that he’s never actually driven a chariot before and consequently hasn’t the slightest idea what he’s doing.

Among the things he does not know how to do are how to stop the horses once they’ve started running, and so they don’t stop at all, not for the deep tones of the alarm bell, or the soldiers who seemingly appear out of nowhere to chase behind them, or the--the flaming haybales, as truly impractical a defense as that seems, that are thrown in their path.

“Are our wheels really on fire?” Shivu can’t help but ask, craning behind to see for himself until Mother firmly guides his head forward so he can pay attention to where they’re going. It’s too late, though; even with that one glance, Shivu can see more chariots after them, not to mention the troop of soldiers who follow on horseback, chief among an old graybeard who looks caught between hope and horror.

Try as he might, Shivu can’t help but imagine them coming ever closer, their breath warm on his neck and their weapons all too near. Mother is there, and of course he trusts her, but what can one woman do against what seems an entire army?

So Shivu really isn’t to be blamed for turning around, against his better judgment and everything he has ever learned, to gauge exactly how far away their pursuers are. He means it only to last a moment at most, but then Mother says, “Shivu!” in that tone of utter disappointment and disapproval that she has, and then, so faintly he might have almost imagined it, the puddle of rags and limbs and hair that is Father stiffens at the sound of her voice and looks up at last, and--

And then the branch just ahead hits Shivu solidly in the head, and he knows no more.

*

When he comes back to himself, the first thing he notices is that his head hurts. The second thing he notices is that he’s lying, face-down, in mud and that someone has removed his mask. He does not seem to be bound, or bloodied, or anything beyond mildly bruised; but he can’t help but cough, however, fortunately just as a voice--a guard?--finishes his report. “....Sure to be nothing more than a accomplice at best. He’s only a boy, Lord Bhuteshwaran. Fourteen at most.”

_ At  _ most? Shivu thinks indignantly, but he hasn’t the luxury to dwell on the indignity.

“Boys grow up,” says whoever-must-be Lord Bhuteshwaran, and that is all the warning Shivu has to throw himself to the side before the sword falls. 

No sword--that’s missing, too, he thinks breathlessly; no armor--that is his own fault, since he’d claimed its weight slowed him down; no idea where Mother or Father might be or even if they were safe. Thunder roars somewhere in the mountains, and Shivu sympathizes. He might wail, too, if only it had any chance of helping.

Fists, then. Shivu refuses to balk. He’s been taught all his life, all fifteen years of it, by who he knows is the best and bravest warrior in all the world, and he will not let her down. This Bhuteshwaran might be bigger, bolder, bulkier, but Shivu is better.

He kicks out desperately at the older man’s knees as the first raindrops fall, and, as expected, he buckles easily. Shivu’s heart leaps. His joy, though, is short-lived as his small victory only serves to infuriate his opponent; Bhuteshwaran reaches blindly for him, coming within a hair’s breadth of catching him: too close. Shivu sprints away, slipping and sliding on the mud and nearly stumbling more often than not. His pursuer has longer legs, though, and a longer reach, and he calculates he has seconds at best before it’s too late. His eyes burn; instinctly, he reaches up to wipe his face. 

Lightning rips through the sky, so close Shivu has to screw his eyes shut against the intensity of it, just as the graybeard he noticed before dismounts and barks: “Bhuteshwaran! What is the meaning of this?” 

Light and sound combine to startle him into losing his footing at last, and Shivu knows it’ll be his last moment alive. The last thing he feels against his skin will be these drops of rain and sweat; the last thing he hears the nicker of the graybeard’s abandoned mare, and the last thing he sees….

A shadow lurching up with sudden determination, reaching for the sword that hangs at the horse’s saddle and drawing it in a single fluid movement before advancing. Lightning flashes once more, only long enough for Shivu to look upon his father’s set face before he draws back his arm and beheads Lord Bhuteshwaran; the man’s head doesn’t fall from his shoulder until the thunder’s echo. 

The storm begins in earnest and Shivu doesn’t care. Instead, he gapes at his father like the worst of fools, oblivious even to the rivulets of rain that plaster his hair to his forehead and eyes. If it’s any consolation, his father seems every bit as mystified, taking Shivu’s face in his hands, the easier to peer at him, and releasing him at last to say some long-awaited piece of paternal wisdom--

“You named him Shivu?” Father asks.

Shivu isn’t sure what he expected, but certainly not that. Behind Father, a woman huffs, and there is Mother. “His name is Mahendra,” she says firmly, before even she can’t keep up the pretense, “but he’s known as Shivu, yes.”

“I believed you disliked the name,” says Father.

“And so too did you believe he’d be a daughter,” Mother retorts. 

Such a conversation is best saved anywhere but the battlefield; all the world knows this but Shivu’s parents, apparently. At least one of them ought to look to the soldiers surrounding them, Shivu thinks, but when he turns, they are all held back by a quick motion from the graybeard himself, clearly a person of higher standing than he’d initially thought. Also he wears a soft smile which seems most uncharacterstic for a commander who’s just watched his colleague be soundly defeated, something which makes not much sense until Father says, very gently: “Come with us, Uncle.”

The graybeard--grandfather, really, if Shivu addresses him politely--only shakes his head. “Once before I broke my oath and suffered fifteen years for it, my Baahu. This heart of mine cannot bear to do so yet again. I wish you well, always.”

He mounts again and leads his men away, and Shivu and his family--his family!--watch him go in solemn silence.

*

The physicians whisk Devasena’s husband away as soon as they return, and half-heartedly she volunteers to join them at their work. “Absolutely not,” says her sister-in-law. “The sickroom is no place for a spouse, and even less an exhausted soldier. Go and rest, and may Muralidhar himself protect you if I hear you’ve stirred before dusk.”

It’s fatigue that ensures her grudging compliance. It’s nothing of the sort. It is exactly that emotion which roils in her belly right now as she stands outside the room where her husband recovers, willing herself to be sensible about the whole matter.

_ It’s been fifteen years _ , she reminds herself.  _ He will have changed. More to the point, so too will have you _ . Her fingernails press half-moons into her palms, not unlike those she’d worshipped as a maiden. Send me someone who will love me, she had prayed, someone I will love; and somehow never had she had the sagacity to add: someone who will spend all his days safe by my side.

Ridiculous to dawdle, she scolds herself. Delaying would take none of the sting off, and only hamper any sweetness. She bustles through the curtain that serves as a door before she can change her mind, and finds herself meeting Baahubali’s gaze.

It’s different by daylight; now she can search for the curiosity, the confidence she’d first noted there. For the moment his eyes are focused only on her, and her cheeks grow warm. 

She studies his back instead. It’s not the scars that stand out--she, of all people, values them as marks of honor--but how haphazardly they’ve healed, how inattentively they’ve been treated. For treated they were, over the years: Devasena has no doubts about that. Bhallaladeva would have prized his prisoner too much to let something so simple as illness carry him off.

Not for the first time, Devasena thinks that banishment is too good for Bhalla. Even beheading falls short. No, to satisfy the rage that wells in her blood, only bludgeoning will do. Or burning. Burning him alive might assuage her wrath. 

But Baahubali says nothing of the sort to her, no word of what he must have endured. He looks at her, in the morning light that hides none of her wrinkles, her wrists and knuckles that now ache when it rains, the waist that is nothing so comely as when she was young, and smiles. She smiles too, because it ought not to be so easy to come together again, because it never could have been anything but so easy, because always she has known with a bone-deep conviction that he was hers and nothing else matters.

At some point, he rumbles: “I’ve disappointed them. How, then, can I say I deserve them?” Her fingers are in his hair, and his hands around her, and she sighs, because she knows what he means by those words, and she laughs, because she knows better.

“You could no more disappoint your people than you could be a man who didn’t deserve their love or loyalty or throne.” she corrects, and waves his protests aside. “I know you as I know my own soul, Amarendra Baahubali. If you were to breathe your last, you would die as a King and ‘Jai Mahishmati’ would be the last words on your lips.”

“Yes,” he says, and his hand--she has always loved his hands--come up to cup her cheek, “but my last thoughts would be of you.”

*

Shivu steals out of the caves by the time the storms finally end, days later, desperate to feel the sunshine upon his face once more, and so it is that he is the only one present to welcome the Chief and Avantika when they return. He has heard the story from the others who returned: how those two alone were separated from the rest by Bhalla’s design, how the other rebels had given them up for dead, were it not for the Chief’s reputation for invincibility. 

Avantika--he’s not entirely sure how he knows it is her, other than a certain way she has of holding herself--at least tilts her head curiously towards him, but the Chief only demands: “Is it done? Is he safe?”

Shivu need not ask for clarification. There is only one  _ he _ that matters anymore, for all of them. “Yes,” he says, “Mother’s with him now.” Only then, because the Chief’s face when bright with joy appears almost human, does he think to add: “You can see him, too, if you wish.”

“Later,” says the Chief, but her smile is no less radiant. “When I have earned that right.”

Personally Shivu thinks that sounds perfectly stupid, but the Chief has changed subjects smoothly. “You’ll have to congratulate Avantika,” she says. “Distinguished in valor, responsible for single-handedly saving her leader’s life no less than three times, and promoted to youngest captain of our ranks.”

“Well done,” Shivu says obediently, although he can’t see that there’s anything praiseworthy about being pushed into responsibility at so young an age, and Avantika ducks her head.  The Chief moves on, satisfied, but Avantika lingers.

“I heard you were brave, too,” she says, “standing alone against a battalion--”

There might have been less standing and more slipping, but Shivu is never one to turn down a compliment. 

“Well done,” Avantika says, not without irony, and lifts her mask. She seems--younger than he expected, and pallid, of course, from so many years sheltered the skin, but if he’d met her otherwise, he would have thought her pretty. Now, though, now he knows she is brave and determined and stubborn and possessed of a primitive sense of humor that desperately needed nurturing. Now he knows she might well be his friend, even if a rebel.

“I must go,” Avantika tells him; “the Chief’s summoned us, you know, but perhaps later I might show you how to address someone of importance without seeming a bumbling incompetent.”

“I do not  _ seem _ \--”

“No,” she agrees cheerily, “You don’t  _ only _ seem so.” And with that parting parry--definitely her sense of humor requires work-- she is gone and Shivu is alone. 

Or so he thinks until he hears the chuckle.

He’s not entirely surprised to find his father there. Over the last few days he has come to find that most of what having a father entails is being teased, mercilessly and often. It shouldn’t be so bad if Shivu did not offer up so many opportunities for Father to make fun.

This seems prime among them, but Father says nothing more, only sits down beside him on the rocks. 

“I wanted to see the sun,” Shivu explains at last. “The storms went on for so long--” He breaks off; surely Father couldn’t sympathize. Hadn’t Mother always said he loved the rain? 

But Father only nods, as though this makes perfect sense; and, when Shivu hesitantly asks if he’s quite sure, Father replies: “Do you know why the rains always pleased me so much, Shivu?”

He shakes his head. Even had he enough knowledge to guess such a thing, he would want Father to explain it regardless in his deep,comforting murmur.

“For a moment such as this,” Father says. “When the air is washed of its imperfections, when the world holds its breath, when the sun returns at last. And always there is one, no matter how terrible the storm.”

Shivu mulls this over. “There will be another battle, won’t it?” he asks at last: in part a reply to what Father said before, in part not.

“Yes,” Father confirms. “Once we’re strong enough for it, against forces multiplied tenfold.”

His heart ought not to fall, but it does. “Oh.” What had he expected; that with the return of his father, Bhallaladeva and the other specters that terrified him would fade into oblivion, like mist before the sun? A child’s folly. 

“But that is tomorrow,” Father says gently. “This is today.” Is it enough? It’ll have to be. Father certainly seems to think so, judging by how he leans forward confidingly and says: “And you’ll allow the advice a man who unfortunately is far too well-acquainted with what suits the face we share, I’d suggest you reconsider that mustache, my son.”

Shivu groans, but before he can retaliate, his nose wrinkles. Smoke, acrid and bitter, fills his nostrils, and frowning, he focuses on the bonfire just ahead, where one by one, the rebels step forward and drop their--

“Masks,” says Father. “They’re burning their masks.”

“But why? Won’t they need them? What if there’s another mission? What if--”

“Because so,” Father reminds him gently, “do they bid farewell to the time of their despair.”

It is on the tip of their tongue to wonder what they might do if they should decide the time of their despair has returned, but he thinks Father might only say they would carve new ones. He supposes there’s a sudden wisdom to that; after all, as Father has said, whatever tomorrow brought with it, today he has a new friend in Avantika, a future in which he need no longer fear being drafted into the rebel ranks, and his family, together once more. 

They wait there, father and son, sitting in silence to bear witness, until the last of the plume of smoke from the Kuntalans’ pyre makes its way into the cloudless sky. 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think I can overstate the extent to which everything good about this fic is because of Maya's genius brain and the 100k messages we've exchanged about this ridiculously iddy plot, and everything terrible because I've apparently never met a prompt or outline that wouldn't spawn multiple character arcs, bad jokes and canon shoutouts that go nowhere, and leave . Please direct all praise to her! Otherwise:  
> * We're actually not told in canon what the masks the rebels wear signify, but Tumblr friends will be well aware that their existence--and the fact that they completely disappear after Dhivara and the one shot of the Kuntalans wearing them in BB1, despite the only logical reason to wear them being to remain anonymous in battle--exasperates me to no end. So this is the completely unsubstantiated headcanon I've come up with: that they grow out of Kuntalan funeral practices, and, when wore by the living, signify utter despair (which, in canon, the Kuntalans reject by the time Devasena is recovered and they go to war in BB2). Also, yes, the irony of this Shivu _hating_ them amuses me.  
>  * There's no indication that Mahendra/Shivu dislikes cramped spaces, any more than his mother does, but well, we never see him being anywhere but open spaces in canon and I kind of like having an out-of-universe explanation why he doesn't just go up the darn tunnel from the start (other than, you know....not knowing it exists....)  
> * My personal rule for canon-divergent AUs dictates that they really ought to stem out of a single change to canon, but the eagle-eyed will have already noted that this story hinges on two independent events (Sivagami discovering Bhalla's scheming after her order is given but before Kattappa returns to confess all, and Kattappa deciding he can't go through with killing his Baahu after all). I very much hope you guys will forgive me.  
> * The jokes about Shivu's terrible mustache are 100% for Maya, who considers it an affront to good taste.  
> * Bhuteshwaran is an entirely non-canonical character created when I did the math and realized that Bhadra, in keeping with my internal chronology, would be a child of eight at this time and Bhalla stubbornly refused to take his place for the Dramatic Scene in the Rain.  
> * Pāśabaddha is Sanskrit for "noosed, snared, caught, bound". In particular, the _noosed_ meaning is the same root word as the noose of Yama, Lord of Death and Justice.


End file.
